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Aging Effects on Neuromuscular Activity in Karate Practitioners



Author(s)

António Manuel Vitória Vences de Brito, Mário André Ferreira Rodrigues, Wojciech Jan Cynarski, Carlos Gutiérrez García

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DOI:10.17265/2332-7839/2015.05.001

Aging leads to a general decline in body functions that affects quality of life. Sports practice is recommended as a means to attenuate the impact of the aging process. The aim of this study was to identify and analyze the neuromuscular activity and its patterns on active karate practitioners and assess the effects of the aging process. Two groups of black belt male karate practitioners, one with nine practitioners over 50 years old and the other with 21 practitioners aged between 20-30 years old performed the frontal kick mae-geri. Kinematic and electromyographic data of five muscles were collected from the right leg. Results showed two distinct periods of muscular activation in the mae-geri performance, with similar muscles activity patterns between groups. Nevertheless, some differences were found in the muscles’ activity onset and offset, in root mean square and in inter-muscle delay and co-contraction periods. Those differences indicated that aging affects the neuromuscular activity in the mae-geri performance of the oldest karate practitioners. Nevertheless, the results showed that lifelong practice of karate can preserve the quality of the neuromuscular activity in older practitioners when they perform a kick, and this could be associated with benefits to balance control. 

Aging, motor control, neuromuscular activity, karate, combat sports, martial arts.